WoW!

The UK donor commitment study. And why it could be worth thousands of pounds to you and your cause

STOPPRESS: This webinar has now been held but you can still see it and share its insights and images, online, by following the links below.

Written by

Ken Burnett

Added

June 16, 2013

An open letter from SOFII’s managing trustee announcing a free SOFII / Agitator webinar of some importance.

Dear Friend,

Just imagine…
Imagine if you could prove the link between commitment and giving. Imagine if you could know for sure what has most influence and impact on donor retention. And if you knew precisely what you could do about it.

Imagine if you could quantify donor commitment across your donor file and identify individual commitment scores for all your donors.

Imagine if you could calculate the financial difference you would make to your fundraising bottom line, merely by increasing the commitment scores of your donors.

And imagine if you knew all the key actions you and your fundraising colleagues should be taking, to raise those commitment scores.

Well, none of this is science fiction. All of the above are not just possible, they’re happening now – thanks to a remarkable outfit based in Washington DC, USA called DonorVoice. With support from the influential US website,The Agitator DonorVoice organised a major donor commitment study in the US last year. See Commitment and why it matters, here.

SOFII and The Agitator wanted to bring this kind of thing to Britain just as soon as possible. So earlier this year nine brave, visionary UK charities took part in the first UK donor commitment study, organised by DonorVoice with the encouragement of SOFII and a few far-sighted UK agencies and consultancies including The Good Agency, Think Consulting Solutions, Bluefrog and Open Fundraising. Fifty national and international charities were included in this first study in addition to the nine sponsors who provided specific data for analysis.

Now the main findings from this ground-breaking study are ready to be more widely shared.

​You’ll find out

Which top UK charities have high donor commitment, and which have low commitment.

How much of a financial difference there is, on average, between the most and least committed. Clue: is it £28.50, £53.00 or £105.00 per donor, per annum?

Could you segment your donors into transactionals, vulnerables, potentials and high commitments?

What’s the correlation between commitment level and number of products purchased?

What matters most to commitment levels? Is it marketing, communication, donor service, fundraising or operations?

What are the 32 personal and functional experiences that you could prioritise for your organisation? And how do you narrow these down to just the handful of key drivers for commitment that will have most influence with your donors?

How will we segment donors in future, to replace the now outdated RFM model?

And most probably, quite a lot more.

Frankly it’s not hard to imagine the difference it would make for fundraisers if we had an effective way to define, measure and influence donor commitment. What would be hard to imagine is why any sensible fundraising leader wouldn’t consider it a top priority to find out more.

Well, now you can quite easily, by participating in the free DonorVoice commitment webinar on August 22nd.

You can enrol for this webinar here. Places are limited, so if you are interested in attending please do this today. NB, whether you live in the UK or outside it you’ll be very welcome. If you have any specific questions you can always email Kevin Schulman at DonorVoice.

The date is Wednesday 22nd August.

The time is 2.00pm UK time, 9.00am Eastern Standard Time.

The subject is, well, perhaps the most important issue to affect your fundraising, bar none. The agenda is detailed above.

I do hope you’ll be there. If you miss it, the chance may not come around again.

Sincerely,

Ken Burnett

PS This webinar revealing the secrets of donor commitment in the UK will only happen once, on 22nd August. As places are limited and will be allocated strictly on a ‘first come’ basis I recommend you book your place today, to avoid disappointment.

About the author: Ken Burnett

Ken Burnett is author of Relationship Fundraising and other books including The Tiny Essentials of an Effective Volunteer Board (The White Lion Press Limited, London, UK) and The Zen of Fundraising, (Jossey-Bass Inc, San Francisco, USA). His latest – and in his view, most important – book is Storytelling can change the world, just published by The White Lion Press.

Ken is also SOFII's managing trustee.

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